Letrozole Blog

Blog (14)

TUESDAY, Dec. 2, 2014 – Many men on hormone therapy for prostate cancer aren't getting bone-strengthening drugs they may need, new Canadian research contends. Hormone therapy, which suppresses male hormones called androgens, helps stop cancer cells from growing. But one consequence of the treatment is weakening of the bones, which can lead to fractures. To reduce this risk, men can be given oral bisphosphonates, such as Fosamax, or an intravenous treatment once a month or once a year with similar drugs, such as Reclast. "There seems to be a clear mismatch between Canadian guidelines regarding bisphosphonate usage in men undergoing hormone therapy for prostate cancer and actual clinical practice," said lead researcher Dr. Shabbir Alibhai, a senior scientist at the University Health Network in Toronto. While the low rates of bisphosphonate prescriptions may be appropriate for patients ... Read more

THURSDAY, Oct. 9, 2014 – Although food allergies have garnered a lot of attention lately, a new study reports that medications are actually the biggest cause of sudden deaths related to allergy. Over a little more than a decade, nearly 60 percent of the allergy-related deaths were caused by medications, while less than 7 percent were caused by food allergies, the study found. "Medications can be dangerous," said study researcher Dr. Elina Jerschow, director of the Drug Allergy Center at Montefiore Medical Center and assistant professor of medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, in New York City. While research from other countries has reported medications as a major culprit in anaphylaxis-related deaths, Jerschow said, the problem has been less defined in the United States. One reason is that there is no national registry for anaphylaxis deaths, she said. The study was ... Read more

WEDNESDAY, July 9, 2014 – Women with polycystic ovary syndrome have a better chance of getting pregnant if they take a breast cancer drug instead of the currently preferred medication, a new study suggests. Polycystic ovary syndrome – the most common cause of female infertility in the United States – causes higher than normal levels of the male hormone androgen, infrequent periods and small cysts on the ovaries. It affects 5 to 10 percent of reproductive-age women, according to background information in the study. Currently, doctors typically prescribe clomiphine (Clomid) to boost fertility for women with polycystic ovary syndrome. However, this new study suggests the drug letrozole (Femara) results in better ovulation, conception and birth rates. "We found a simple and comparatively safe and vastly more effective treatment for [polycystic ovary syndrome]," said lead researcher Dr. ... Read more

THURSDAY, Dec. 12, 2013 – Exercise might help breast cancer survivors relieve the joint pain that is a side effect of their medications, researchers say. A new study included patients who were taking aromatase inhibitor drugs, such as Arimidex (anastrozole), Femara (letrozole) and Aromasin (exemestane). Five years of treatment with these drugs is recommended for survivors who had stages 1, 2 or 3 hormone receptor-positive breast cancers. This form of the disease accounts for nearly 70 percent of newly diagnosed breast cancer cases. Nearly half of those who take these medications, however, experience joint pain and stiffness. These side effects are the most common reason patients stop taking the drugs, the study authors said in an American Association for Cancer Research news release. In this study, breast cancer survivors who were taking aromatase inhibitors and had joint pain were ... Read more

THURSDAY, Feb. 14 – Chemotherapy can be a lifesaver for thousands of cancer patients, but a new study suggests that it might slightly raise the odds for a type of leukemia later in life. Over the past 30 years, the risk for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) has increased for patients who underwent chemotherapy for certain forms of cancer, particularly non-Hodgkin lymphoma, the new study found. On the other hand, the researchers from the U.S. National Cancer Institute said other cancer survivors may have a reduced risk for AML due to a change in chemotherapy agents that occurred decades ago. One expert not connected to the study stressed that cancer patients need to put the findings into perspective. "It's important to realize that the risk of developing acute myeloid leukemia related to prior chemotherapy is small and increases with the number of chemotherapy treatments given over time," ... Read more

WEDNESDAY, Dec. 5 – An experimental cancer drug may delay the progression of some advanced breast cancers, while a double dose of an existing cancer drug could help women live longer, according to separate studies reported Wednesday. In one study, of nearly 200 women, researchers tested the effects of adding the experimental drug – known for now as PD 0332991 – to Femara (letrozole), a hormonal therapy already used to treat certain breast cancers. They found that women on the combination had a much longer "progression-free survival" – the time a cancer patient lives with the disease without it getting worse. For women on the combination therapy, that period was typically 26 months, versus less than eight months among women given Femara alone. "That's a dramatic difference," said lead researcher Dr. Richard Finn, associate professor of medicine at the University of California, Los ... Read more

FRIDAY, Sept. 28 – Postmenopausal women treated for breast cancer with drugs known as aromatase inhibitors have high rates of sexual problems, which is an important and underestimated issue, according to a new study from Sweden. Nearly three-quarters of these women reported insufficient lubrication, 56 percent had pain during intercourse, half said their sexual interest was low, and 42 percent were dissatisfied with their sex life. These percentages are much higher than for postmenopausal women who weren't treated for beast cancer, according to researchers Dr. Juliane Baumgart and colleagues at Orebro University and Uppsala University. The study was published online this month in Menopause and appears in the February 2013 print issue of the journal. Women taking tamoxifen for breast cancer treatment also had low sexual interest and more pain with intercourse, but had far fewer problems ... Read more

MONDAY, Jan. 9 – Combination drug treatment that targets estrogen production significantly reduced the number of tobacco carcinogen-related lung tumors in mice, a new study shows. "Anti-estrogens have been shown to prevent breast cancer in some women," Jill Siegfried, a professor in the department of pharmacology and chemical biology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, said in an American Association for Cancer Research news release. "If anti-estrogens can prevent lung cancer as well, this would be a major advance, because these drugs are safe to give for long periods and there are no approved ways to prevent lung cancer," she added. Most lung cancers have a type of estrogen receptor that makes tumors grow when they're exposed to estrogen. In addition, aromatase, an enzyme in the lung, produces estrogen. Siegfried and her team found that blocking this estrogen receptor ... Read more

MONDAY, Dec. 12 – Severe side effects may be key to why so many older breast cancer patients stop taking drugs that can help prevent a tumor's return, a new study finds. The research also revealed a large gap between what these breast cancer patients tell their doctors about drug side effects and what they actually experience, according to the study authors from Northwestern University in Chicago. Their study included 686 postmenopausal women with estrogen-sensitive breast cancer who were asked about their symptoms before treatment with estrogen-blocking drugs called aromatase inhibitors, which include medications such as Arimidex, Aromasin and Femara. The women were tracked at three, six, 12 and 24 months after starting treatment. After three months, about one-third of the patients had severe joint pain, 28 to 29 percent had hot flashes, nearly one-quarter had decreased libido, 15 to ... Read more

FRIDAY, Oct. 21 – The breast cancer drug letrozole, marketed as Femara, may be more effective than tamoxifen at preventing the return of breast cancer and improving survival among older women with hormone-sensitive breast cancers, a new study reports. In the study, published online Oct. 21 in The Lancet Oncology, the researchers updated data from an ongoing study of about 8,000 women, which compares the two drugs alone as well as the use of both Femara and tamoxifen sequentially. Femara outperformed tamoxifen in terms of breast cancer recurrence and survival, the study found. Moreover, giving Femara alone to women was more effective than giving it sequentially following tamoxifen. The new study was partially funded by Novartis, the drug company that makes Femara. The hormone estrogen feeds hormone-sensitive cancers, and blocking it may help stave off a recurrence. Femara is part of a ... Read more

WEDNESDAY, Sept. 28 – Cancer patients are often faced with many difficult-to-understand treatment choices that can have serious side effects and even mean the difference between life and death. That's why it's crucial that patients insist doctors use plain language in explaining the options, advised Angela Fagerlin, an associate professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School and a researcher at the U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center. "People are making life and death decisions that may affect their survival and they need to know what they're getting themselves into. Cancer treatments and tests can be serious. Patients need to know what kind of side effects they might experience as a result of the treatment they undergo," Fagerlin said in a university news release. She and her colleagues outlined a number of tips to help patients get the information they need ... Read more

FRIDAY, Feb. 4 – Middle-aged breast cancer survivors face an increased risk for hip fractures, a condition normally uncommon in women younger than 70, a new study has found. Researchers at Northwestern University in Chicago say that this may be because early menopause caused by breast cancer treatment and the effects of breast cancer drugs could weaken the bones by the time women reach middle age. The finding came from a study of six women who had survived breast cancer and, in their early 50s, were being treated for hip fractures. Most of the women did not have osteoporosis, but they did have lower-than-normal bone mineral density (osteopenia). This suggests that rapid changes in bone architecture caused by chemotherapy, early menopause and adjuvant breast cancer therapy may not be detected on a bone mineral density test, said Dr. Beatrice Edwards, an associate professor of medicine ... Read more

THURSDAY, Dec. 9 – Long-term use of aromatase inhibitors, drugs often prescribed to breast cancer patients, may increase the risk of heart problems for postmenopausal women, according to a Canadian researcher. ''There have always been suspicions," said Dr. Eitan Amir, senior fellow at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto, who is scheduled to present the findings this week at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium in Texas. In December 2008, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration added a warning label to anastrozole, an aromatase inhibitor marketed as Arimidex, citing a potential increased risk for heart disease. Amir's team evaluated previously published studies to find out if other aromatase inhibitors also increased the risk of heart disease in postmenopausal women with breast cancer. ''We looked at seven trials which have compared aromatase inhibitors with tamoxifen,'' he said ... Read more

TUESDAY, July 13 – A leading group of cancer experts has issued new guidelines on the best way to use two classes of hormone therapies for estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer, the most common form of breast tumor. After a systematic review of medical research on the subject, experts reported that adding an aromatase inhibitor – a drug that reduces the amount of estrogen produced in the body – has clearly been shown to reduce the number of tumor recurrences in postmenopausal women compared with the standard drug tamoxifen, which works by blocking the action of estrogen on cancer tumors that are estrogen-receptor positive. The committee preparing the guidelines recommended, therefore, that all postmenopausal women with this type of breast cancer use aromatase inhibitors either before or after tamoxifen. They also concluded that women could use them as long as five years after ... Read more

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